U.S. Pat. No. 5,316,365 granted to Howard W. Kuhiman and Jeffrey K. Joyner May 31, 1994 discloses a sliding vehicle door for a passenger van. The sliding door is supported and guided by an upper track, a center track and a lower track. An upper roller assembly is attached to an upper forward corner of the door and runs in the upper track which is at the top of the side door opening. A lower roller assembly is attached to the lower forward corner of the door and runs in the lower track which is at the bottom of the side door opening. A hinge and roller assembly is pivotally attached to the middle rear portion of the door and runs in the center track which is in the rear side panel of the van.
The travel of the sliding door from the closed position to the open position is limited by the length of the upper, middle and lower tracks. It is desirable to expose the entire side opening of the van when the sliding door is in the open position. This means that the front edge of the sliding door must be located at the rear edge of the side opening when the sliding door is in the open position and that the tracks must be long enough to accommodate door travel to such a position. This is generally not a problem in vans that have long wheel bases and a side opening of conventional size. However, it is difficult to fullly expose the side opening in vans that have a short wheel base or in vans that have a wide side opening. This difficulty is usually caused by the lower track which must terminate short of the body structure for the rear wheel well that is aft of the side opening.